president trump is about an hour away from taking the stage the there. will rally his supporters and no doubt to talk a bit to the potential rivals who are out there campaigning as well. good evening, everybody. i am martha maccallum in new york tonight and this is "the story." while the president is in iowa, senators are on capitol hill where the republican side of the aisle appears ready for this to end. >> the move to vote on acquittal as it is possible. >> i think we've offered enough. i think people are tired. i think both republicans and democrats are tired of this. >> if you think you need more after all of this, it's hard to

understand. >> i think it's time to vote. i'm ready to vote and i'm ready to vote now. >> martha: the acquittal that republicans seem to want is also what democrats want? former obama chief of staff rahm emanuel confirming what many suspected in the op-ed for "the washington post" today, writing this: many may pass impeachment for a strategic blunder but that might be premature, just as republicans overshot the mark by impeaching cleveland >> all: clinton , by forcing republican pluralist to cast an unpopular vote to deny witness testimony, his party might be able to win , hearkening back to one of rahm emanuel's most famous quotes. >> you never want a serious crisis to go to waste. what i mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you could not do before. >> martha: who wins on this in the end?

we'll have more on that later in the show and in moments both sides of the aisle way in with republican senator rand paul at the aquatic senator chris van hollen. but first, courts chad pergram on the hill tonight. >> two hours and 45 minutes remained in this question-and-answer session in the impeachment trial. they will probably wrap up just after 10:00 or so. they've been through 148 questions and tomorrow is going to be a seminal day, as you say, as we determined to vote on witnesses. there are three republican senators and playwright malcolm lisa murkowski of alaska, susan collins of maine, and mitt romney of utah. there was a very curious moment will republican senator rand paul, jr. senator of kentucky tried to pose a question through the chief justice. the chief justice rejected his entry. let's listen. >> the presiding officer

declines to read the question as submitted. >> it means anybody who ever might've said right than the whistle-blower could never be discussed in proceedings. informed whether or not a group of democratic activists of the obama-bret administration were working together for years looking for the opportunity to impeach the president. >> there have been republican questions about the allegation that lead impeachment manager adam schiff and his staff worked with the whistle-blower. adam schiff says that fiction, fox has not confirmed the name of any whistle-blower. if you are operating under normal senate circumstances and have a ruling against the presiding officer, you could appeal the ruling of the chair and that's where the senate could actually vote up or down to whether or not to sustain the ruling of the chair or overturn it. that did not happen. i'm told by senator paul that's something he think he could've done, they did not do that in that instance and it does appear

that it would fly in the face of the senate impeachment rules or the special framework they set up for this, martha. thank you. >> martha: joining us now is senator rand paul. senator, thank you. good to have you here this evening. obviously, you asked a question today that was shot down by chief justice roberts. anybody who wants to hear the whole text of that question and the names you included is on your twitter feed and you talked about it today and i would direct them there. but i ask you not to say them here and i would love to know what you wanted to get out of the question and why you feel it's so important to focus on the origins of this investigation and to bring that point home. >> my question did not identify anyone as a whistle-blower or referred to anyone as it was a blower. but my question to discuss two obama partisans who worked in the national security council. one of them now works for adam schiff and one of them is

someone who is involved in the origins of the impeachment inquiry. so these two people have been friends for a long time. there are stories and reports now that they a few years ago were overheard saying, we've got to do everything we can to bring down the president, to take down the president. lo and behold, these two friends are still intimately involved in the story even think thickens from there. there are three people who worked for adam schiff staff who used to work for national security staff. they know this third gentleman. they all know vindman and vindman's brother. six people who work for the security council transmitting things back and forth at my question is did they have discussions predating the official impeachment inquiry? may be predated even by a year or two. we know that adam schiff was dishonest when he said there was no contact. turns out they did have contact in the days and weeks leading up

to the impeachment inquiry. but it may well be that they had contact even a year or two ago and i think people ought to be able to discuss that. i was disappointed that the question was shut down. >> i think the question of the origins of this investigation, just like the questions of the origins of the russian investigation, are certainly valid questions to ask. one of the problems i think frustrating watching all of this is that there is no forum here. there is no cross-examination. even if your question has been asked, what would be the best you could ever hope for in terms of what would happen when adam schiff got up and try to answer it? >> adam schiff is not really answering question. you would actually have to have them in the deposition under oath. but so is sean misko who was on his staff and other people on his staff because the need to be asked if they were helping and coaching this complaint not only in the days preceding the impeachment complaint but in

days or weeks months before, simply looking and waiting for some bit of evidence that they could create and craft into an impeachment complaint, and that's not the way the whistle-blower statute was meant to be. it was not meant to be some sort of blanket of unity from. one of the telling questions, we've had 100 hours of questioning, senator bur would it be impeachable to get a dossier on someone, like what happened at the president be five? they are now saying a lot of things are impeachable and that's the problem having this low level or low standard for impeachment is that, you know, i've had a lot of policy disagreements with president obama but i did not call to impeach him. if we lower our standard and dumb it down, everybody is going to be impeaching everybody and it's going to be a disaster for our country. >> martha: and then you mentioned is one of the people you mention in your tweet before, and he is still currently working for that he's on the staff still come correct?

>> sean misko is sitting there. he's in the senate chamber with two other people. >> martha: nothing secret about that. but let me ask you, you know, just looking at your twitter feed today, about half the people who respond think that you should be arrested, they think you are a communist working for the russian government, the other half think you are a hero which is typical for the responses you sometimes get because you do sometimes put yourself out there on these issues. but for anybody at home he says, yeah, i'd like to know the answer to these questions, why doesn't the senate judiciary committee or the doj, someone start to look into this just as we saw happen with the origins of the russia investigation? is that going to happen? >> may be eventually. what we've done is overblown this idea of whistle-blower protection. i'm a big defender of whistle-blowers. eric snowden, the biggest -- edward snowden, the biggest whistle-blower of all time but many people want to put him in jail and kill them even though a whistle-blower. he revealed something we were

doing unconstitutional and our government changed, we changed laws because we were so worried about what he revealed and a lot of people have mixed feelings about him. same thing with this whistle-blower. if this was a concocted plots to bring on the president, that's not what the whistle-blower statute is about, but the whistle-blower statute does not guarantee you are anonymous, guarantees you are not fired but i do not want to fire their whistle-blower, but i think the president deserves that this that this was a blow or come forward and i never identified anybody as a whistle-blower. that's quite unfair to exclude my question. i'm just identifying people who are friends and against the president and plotted against the president. the one i make out >> martha: i'mabout to talk to senator van hollan and i want to give you a response to what he said because i'm sure he's goino want to build on that in a mome. he said this is absolutely repugnant, doing this would send a statement to future whistle-blower, if used channels to abuse down the abuse of power >> i think we are on different

wavelengths here. we saw what the clintons did in purchasing foreign information to go after president trump, the fake fisa warrants, all the fbi lying 17 times. the great irony about this entire thing is they are mad that they said president trump did it, they are doing the exact same thing in a very partisan way which everyone of them said during the clinton impeachment was a problem. they are now doing exactly that. if the shoe fits it, wear it. they are hypocritical on all this. >> martha: did you think there was anything wrong with a phone call? did you see it as a request for a political favor in the coming election against somebody who is likely running against the president? >> the original legislation that we gave money to ukraine said the president has to investigate corruption. i think there is a lot of evidence that the bidens are corrupt and there was corruption, so he would actually be going against the law if he didn't investigate the biden.

what i think he did was completely in compliance with the law and this is just a partisanship thing gone amok and ultimately the democrats are going to regret they did this because they are making it very, very hard for the country to have any ability to get there. it's very polarizing, divisive as anyone seen it. >> martha: good to see you, senator paul. also joining me tonight, democratic senator chris van hollen from maryland. senator, thank you for being here this evening. we read your tweet from earlier going after senator rand paul. you heard him lay out his reasoning for why he thinks his question was in line and above board. what do you say? >> martha, it's good to be with you and there's a reason the chief justice declined to answer his question. the only question chief justice said was not appropriate to be asked and, by the way, republican leader mcconnell warned of the body about those kind of questions.

it is not just me who is having this reaction to the proposal by rand paul. there are couple of reasons it's important to protect this whistle-blower. number one, the president of united states has called him a spy. he said that this is kind of treasonous activity and he went on to say that we used to know what they used to d do to those kinds of people in the old days be the whistle-blower's identity is still not known, lots of people have already issued all sorts of threats that would put that person's life at risk. that's the first thing. the second thing is the house case, while it was triggered by the whistle-blower blowing the whistle, the reality is that all of the evidence that is brought to the senate is based on evidence that has nothing to do with the whistle-blower. they whistle-blower wasn't one of their witnesses, obviously. the witness didn't providing a testimony that's now incorporated in the house's ca

case. it's also relevant to the house case that's been put on. for all of those reasons, the chief justice ruled the way he did. >> martha: i would point out that we have the same rule here and asked him not to reveal the name on this program tonight and he respected that from which we are glad about. we wanted to have a conversation about the larger picture why he felt it was important to look into the origins in this and one of the reasons i think that perhaps that is something worth pursuing is this question of whether or not a president is entitled to have discussions with foreign leaders that don't spill out into the public. because whoever did, you know, however this whistle-blower was started this ball rolling and i would agree with you that there were many other people who have similar feelings and wanted to get the message out about this call and were not happy about it, so i think it probably would've come out one way or another. what do you think about that?

the protection of the president of united states positivist ability to have discussions with foreign leaders and to have that be sacrosanct, to some extent? >> there is no doubt. presidents have a lot of sensitive conversations with foreign leaders and obviously there is an interest in protecting any legitimate conversations. the president may have, including any classified material. when it's not a classified manner and when the president is pursuing a corrupt purpose as in this case, essentially saying, hey, i got an offer for you, and then going on to ask them to launch an investigation into an american citizen, so a foreign power launching an investigation into a foreign citizen who just happened to announce a few months earlier that they were going to run for the democratic nomination for president. that is clearly asking a foreign leader to interfere in american political campaigns for the

benefit of the president. there is no protection, no confidentiality of protection or classification protection for a president, for a phone call like that. in fact, as we know, once the whistle-blower complaint was known, the president released at least a memo of the phone call. >> martha: the substance of what you are saying is valid as your opinion, as you know. the president has a different opinion about it but he said it's in the larger context that was brought up, that's what this whole process has been about determining. how do you feel about the fact that it is looking like there will be no witnesses, and i can't prejudge it, of course. the vote is going to be tomorrow. that looks like the way it's going right now. how do you feel about that, sir? >> i'm not sure. that moment of truth will come tomorrow and we have a vote of whether or not to get witnesses and documents. but just to the point you raised about how the president has a different interpretation of what he was doing was says he was not withholding aid to ukraine in

exchange for these clinical favors, why not allow people who worked for the president? i mean, john bolton worked as the president's national security advisor. to call me democratic witness at this time is just nuts! mick mulvaney, the president's acting chief of staff, is somebody who works for the president. by the way, the president said on december 3rd, we should have mick mulvaney testify at the trial in the senate. so what i proposed, martha, is let's have an impartial process for deciding which witnesses are relevant and which are not. that process is to allow the chief justice of the united states who is a presiding officer to make that initial determination about who is relevant and who is not. the president's lawyers can say joe biden is relevant to this. and the house managers will say, here is why john bolton is relevant. let the chief justice decide and under the senate rules, the senate by majority vote could

still overturn that determination of the chief justice. if people are interested in getting the truth, why are they so afraid of allowing that impartial process to proceed? >> martha: we'll see what happens tomorrow. senator, thank you very much. good to see you tonight. also joining me now, we are lucky to have several of the senators involved in this process, republican senator josh hawley from missouri who sits on the senate judiciary committee and he joins me now. senator hawley, thank you for being here tonight. what do you think about this whole rand paul situation? we just had a back-and-forth between rand paul and senator senator van hollen. what do you say? was it appropriate to bring that up? >> i think it's absolutely appropriate to ask they whistle-blower with a staff of adam schiff and adam schiff himself. we've tried to ask mr. schiff, what contacted you have with the whistle-blower? why did july about a question mark why did your staff lie about it question mickey won't answer any of the questions on the floor. they are berating us and say

that it's improper to ask about these questions. >> martha: he says he doesn't know him. had no knowledge of it whatsoever. >> we know that's not true. >> martha: what reason do you have to believe that it isn't true? >> he lied about it in the past. he said he had no contact with her with the whistle-blower in the past, the whistle-blower did not reach out to his staff. turned out it was all untrue. before the whistle-blower filed for a complaint, he contacted adam schiff and his staff. we know that schiff's staff advised the whistle-blower before he filed the complaint. let's know those details but schiff won't answer those questions. >> martha: the possibility that there could be you are a clerk for chief justice roberts and there's a lot of speculation that he would not want to enter into the tie-breaking rule. what do you think about that? >> i have not spoken to him about it but i would suspect that he would not cast a tie-breaking vote. new preset

one other trial, andrew johnson over a century ago. when that was done over a century ago, the chief justice voted and it was hugely controversial. i would suspect that he would not put himself into that scenario. listen, if it's 50/50, the motion to call witnesses would fail and we would be able to move to a final vote to acquit and i think we need to do that as soon as possible. it's time to end this. >> martha: you heard senator senator van hollen, why not discuss these witnesses, why not discuss parity on these witnesses, what are you afraid of in terms of what a mick mulvaney might say, and john bolton might say. he says transparency is a better way to go. >> listen, if we are going to talk about parity, the president should be able to call 17 witnesses to begin with. the democrats got 17 witnesses in the house. all of the testimony has been admitted into evidence in the record before us in the senate and the house managers have been

presenting it during their many, many hours of argument. true parity would be, let's let the president call 17 witnesses. you do not see the democrats wanting to do that. this is about presuming their case, martha. this is about going out and getting new evidence and you witnesses to make a case they do not have because their case is bogus. >> martha: senator hawley, thank you. always good to see you. joining me now, trey gowdy nelly fox news contributor. thank you for being here tonight. good to see you. is it okay for rand paul to mention the name in his tweet today. he said he mentioned a name, knows whether or not the person is whistle-blower but wants to know about that person's potential involvement in the beginning of all this. >> martha, i actually think both sides are wrong in the spirit we make 4-year-olds testify in court. we make women who were sexually assaulted in court. you could escape the

cross-examine, we don't do it for anyone else, why this whistle-blower? the other thing, about this whistle-blower, i don't need him! why do i care someone who overheard the conversation felt about it or thought about it or believed about it. i can read it for myself. the whistle-blower is relevant but he's not material and there are plenty of witnesses i think would be more probative than the whistle-blower of a transcript you and i can read ourselves. >> martha: to the point that i had been talked about earlier, pushed open a process that violates the issue of the president's right to have discussions that are not public, pushed out in the public, even though he knows or knew at that time there were many people on the call but they are in the circle for that reason. are you worried about the

precedent that's been set with that with all of this? >> the remedy of that is to limit the number of people on those calls. there are consequences anybody takes unprecedented acts, if you listen to a conversation of a president and the leader of another country and then you voided to nullify that confidence and tell somebody about it, the president should shrink the number of people on the culprit that's the remedy of that. let me tell you what, a dozen people out of this call, do you really need a dozen people to take notes? >> take it to a vote on witnesses? >> you know, martha, i talked to my senate buddies on the way over tonight in my truck on the cell phone. i'm not convinced that they have the votes for witnesses.

i think that's still very much up in the air and i think my republican friends in the senate are worried that they -- some folks may vote for bolton and no focus on the other side. that may be an unmitigated disaster for republicans. if you are going to have bolton and have hunter biden, if you are going to have mulvaney, you are going to need joe biden. the notion that you're going to have the house who could've called all of their witnesses, but did not, we are going to reward that with an appearance in the senate? i would just caution my republican colleagues in the senate, do not fall for that he would either have no witnesses or have some parity among the witnesses. i do not think it's a foregone assurance that they will not vote to have witnesses. not yet. >> martha: interesting. even senator lindsey graham sounding pretty confident about all of this. senator mcconnell seems to have more of a spring in a step

that he did yesterday on this issue, are there specific senators you are getting word or maybe not sure at this point? collins? lamar alexander? >> i mean, romney for sure. makowski, collins. i think you get a sense of the questions being asked. most of the questions are leading answers down the questions that assume the answer but there are some senators that are really asking a legitimate, direct open question. soliciting more information. to the extent those are republicans and i've heard it from collins, i've heard from murkowski -- be when there is a question by collins and murkowski asking if the president had disd the bidens with regards to the larger issue of corruption and when the first time that came up. is that the question you saw as a red flag? >> there was another question that i heard which was is it ever appropriate to investigate a political opponent?

and under what circumstances? i remember adam took a pass on that and i didn't think it was a great answer from the president's attorneys. but that's a really good question. what are the circumstances under which it would be appropriate? the fact that someone's running against me does not give me an immunity from crime. it means i shouldn't investigate them but doesn't mean they should not be investigated. i thought that was a really good question. i think kyrsten sinema probably not on the witnesses, certainly on the issue of acquittal or conviction, i think sinema asked a great question last night and knowing her the way i do i would be surprised if you are not generally undecided on the verdict but not on witnesses. >> martha: do you think we'll see some democratic senators vote to acquit? >> for sure you'll see one from alabama if he wants to be called senator again, he'll be called called to acquit, joe manchin. sinema is her own person and she's not afraid of anyone and

she is going about her conscience and doesn't matter what anybody else thinks and that's part of why i like and respect her so much. i have not talked to her about it. i do not think you'll lose any any republicans. you may pick up collin manchin n alabama. >> martha: good to see you. so the senators are about to resume the q&a session. there is any and indiana senator mike braun. we'll take you in life. most republicans are confident democrats will come out on the losing side of the impeachment battle, rahm emanuel says, not so fast. there is a bigger plan that'll come out on the democrats 'side of it. we'll talk that theory around when we come back. eve is provenr and longer on pain than tylenol.

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>> you never want a serious crisis to go to waste. what i mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. >> martha: that became one of rahm emanuel's famous quotes as former chief of staff to president obama. the former chicago mayor made a similar suggestion about democrats losing the impeachment battle, saying in a new op-ed, here is one arena in which impeachment is likely to have an outside impact. in the battle of control for congress. it could up and the things in the senate, where republicans hold the three seat margin. impeachment will likely decide the fate of a handful of republicans in the cycle. tammy bruce, president of independent women's voice and fox contributor, and chris hahn, former aide to chuck schumer and syndicated radio host. welcome to the both of you.

the tentacles of this whole thing go well beyond the actual process. even if it doesn't tomorrow, this story goes on and on on both narratives. tammy, what do you think the impact is honorable can senators? >> i think what we saw and rahm emanuel made the comparison to the clinton impeachment, right? the nature of the impact on republicans. but the real comparison would be the kavanaugh dynamic that we've seen this play out, partisan politics being played out, using an individual as a target to try to get your name made and try to gin up some enthusiasm on your base. we know that fails for the senate because people watching what was happening, they found it unfair. they also did not like that we were taking away from the business of the country. i think we are going to see the same thing a bit here as well. even beyond the impeachment, which i think it's kind of a hail mary pass in the midst of all of this, you see these enormous crowds for the president. the new jersey crowd which was overwhelming, you see them at

50% approval today with rasmussen. the senators who are in a little bit of trouble? that's from the republican base withdrawing because of what they've been doing against the president, those in visuals will come back. bottom line is i think you are going to be seeing democratic senators like doug jones with jeff sessions also running in trouble, you'll see the republicans keep the senate and it's going to be because of the coattails of the president. one of the last things, though. in 2016, for the first time ever, people voted for the same party for the senate and as they did for the present and see. that will be repeated. >> martha: chris, she laid out a compelling argument for why this is a big win from republicans. >> she said it so well but she's completely well. the republicans are overreaching here. they are not distancing themselves for what the president did and most americans think there is something wrong with what the president

did. more importantly, americans love separation of powers. they want to see a congress that holds american i think who's got a serious primary opponent is going to have some problems winning the primary because doug collins got the president's ear, or has been donated to the clintons and issues with that. you will see a real challenge with that state. i think martha mcsally is coast, we know gardiner is toast. we might lose doug jones, some seeds democrats having play, but there are more republican seats in play and the fact they would not stand up to the president, they would not hold the president to account and you know that there is a scandal every day with this guy. everything something comes out and refused to hold them accountable. >> martha: republicans say the scandal a day is perpetuated and fed by your side of the aisle and at some point people - --

>> he feeds up the material! >> they continue to underestimate the president and we saw on cnn, it's an attitude about his supporters they cannot resist in repeating complete contempt and ridicule and not taking supporters seriously either. that was a mistake in '16, it's a mistake now. >> martha: we are seeing some of the scenes in this rally 8:00 tonight in des moines tonight and you know the president is going to focus on usmca, focus on the economy. all of these things, chris, which he's been able to accomplish even in the middle of all of this. >> look, the economy is good. he should be at 60% in the polls with this economy. he's at 42% in the average of the polls. you can quote rasmussen all you want. >> martha: the polls have been in creation. >> he's been 40%-45% in his entire presidency pin never expended his bait, never seen

nevergiven lip service to try to unite the country. about vitriol toward his base, this president has more vitriol towards democrats and the credit supporters and anyone i've ever seen! martha: it's been a very bipartisapartisan impeachment p. >> also on the issues, the gallup poll today, very up in double digits. >> martha: the country is on the right track numbers are not good. >> that's not about tunnel trunk. that track is also with the democrats and the never trumpers and this attitude also signifies that the approval is at 26%. it's not about the president, about the nature of the opposition to the president -- >> the only thing keeping this president from being reelected is this president, his actions

in office, his contempt for the rule of law, and his attitude toward the american people! he's not going to be reelected -- be when the thing that will reelect him is that he is who he is. >> has not expanded his voters. he's in big trouble. >> at this point, he was elected on a wing and a prayer. perhaps this businessman could make a difference and he has delivered. the middle east peace process, the economy, the trade deal. it is a remarkable level of the compliments not just now hoping he might be right, he's proven to be right. >> and his average polling is 43%. with all of this accomplishe, i0 3%. >> martha: with bernie, how do you feel how that happens question mike >> i don't know. i'm going to see who -- there are a lot of things i do not like about bernie sanders but at

least the rule of law's will be followed by him which i do not believe they are followed by this president and he'll try to unite the country. i might not like everything he does, but he wants to go to congress to get those things done. >> the person of who honeymooned in the soviet union. >> martha: thank you very muc much. they are starting to reassemble heading back from the dinner break. they are susan collins. a lot of focus from the senator from maine as we head into the vote tomorrow on the right-hand side of your screen, des moines, iowa, vice president mike pence warming up the crowd as the president gets ready to take the stage. we'll be back from a quick break and will have more for our "the story" right after this. taking metamucil every day can help. its psyllium fiber forms a gel that traps and removes the waste that weighs you down. it also helps lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption, promoting healthy blood sugar levels.

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>> martha: okay. we are in the final set of the last question and answer session that has just begun.

we expect them to go a couple of hours here and i've got michael goodwin of "the new york post" who wrote a great piece on all of this today. we'll talk to him in a few minutes but we want to chip in the next several questions and see where that's coming from. you see chief justice roberts who has taken his seat again and the president's side on the right and here comes the question and the house managers on your left. let's hear who the question is from. let's listen in. >> the question from senator van hollan and his response to an earlier question, mr. sekulow cited the bidens not relevant to our case. are you opposed to having the chief justice having the determinations of relevance of documents and witnesses particularly as a senate could disagree with the chief justice's ruling by a majority

vote? >> president's council first. speaker mr. chief justice, to make our position clear, we think constitutionally that would not be the appropriate way to go. no disrespect to the chief justice at all who is presiding as the presiding officer, but our view is that if there are issues that have to be resolved on houston's constitutional matters, it should be done in the appropriate way. you have sent rules to govern on what you would do, and if litigation would be necessary for a particular issue, that would have to be looked at. but this idea we can short-circuit a system which is what they've been doing for three months is not something we are willing to go with. i've said that, i've said it all day yesterday. again, no disrespect to the senator's question, that's not a position we will accept. as far as moving these proceedings forward. thank you.

>> senators, they say that would not because additionally appropriate. where is it prohibited in the constitution that an impeachment trial, upon the agreement of the parties, the chief justice cannot resolve issues of the materiality of witnesses? of course that is permitted by the constitution. counsel earlier sad that the house managers want to decide which witnesses the president should be able to call. we want them to call our witnesses. well, you would think that mick mulvaney, the white house chief of staff, would be there witness if indeed he supports what the president is claiming. he's willing to say under oath what he's willing to say in a press statement. you would think he would be there witness. but i'm not saying that we get to decide. that's not the proposal here. the proposal is we take a week,

the senate goes about its business can we do depositions, the witnesses are not witnesses in the president's path. we get a decision on his house managers, but rather that we entrust the chief justice of the united states to make a fair and impartial decision as to whether a witness is material or not, whether a witness has relevant facts or not, or whether a witness is simply being brought before this body for the purposes of retribution, in the case of the whistle-blower, or to smear the bidens without material purpose relevant to these proceedings. we are not asking that you accept our judgment on that. we are proposing that the chief justice make that decision. i think the reason, of course, they don't want the chief justice to make that decision as i indicated the other night is not because they don't trust the chief justice to be fair, it's because they fear the chief justice will be fair.

and i think that tells you everything you need to know about the lack of good faith when it comes to the arguments they make about why they went to court, why they refuse to comply with any subpoenas, why they refused to provide any documents, why they are here before you saying that the house managers must sue to get witnesses and they are in court on the same day saying that you cannot sue to get witnesses. and this is why they do not want the chief justice to make that decision because they know the witnesses they are requesting are for purposes of retribution or distraction. >> mr. chief justice? >> the senator from north carolina. >> i sent a question to the desk on behalf of myself and senato senator cruz. >> thank you.

question is for the house managers. you have based your case on the proposition that it was utterly baseless and a sham to ask for an investigation into possible corruption of burisma and the bidens. chris hines, the stepson of then secretary of state john kerry, emailed kerry's chief of staff, apparently i can't speak to why they decided to but there was no investment by our firm in their company. subsequently terminated his business relationship with devin archer and hunter biden because "working with burisma is on except the bowl" and showed a lack of judgment. do you agree with chris hines that working with burisma was

unacceptable. do john kerry or job i didn't agree with chris hines? if so, why not? >> come the reason why joe biden is not material to these proceedings, the reason why this is a baseless smear, the issue is and if hunter biden should've sat on the board are not set on the board, the issue isn't if he was properly compensated or improperly compensated or he speaks ukrainian or doesn't speak ukrainian. what the president asked for is an investigation of joe biden. the smear against joe biden is that he sought to fire a prosecutor because he was trying to protect his sodden. i guess that's the nature of the allegation. and that is a baseless smear. as we demonstrated as the unequivocal testimony in the house demonstrated, when the

vice president sought the dismissal of a corrupt and incompetent prosecutor, it had nothing to do with hunter bide biden's position on the board. it had up to do with the fact that the state department's, or allies, the international monetary fund, or in unanimous agreement that this prosecutor was corrupt. in the it would increase the chances of real corruption prosecution going forward, not it would decrease them. so the sham is this, that sham is that joe biden did something wrong when he followed united states policy. what he did was he was asked of by european allies. when he did what was asked by international institutions, the other sham is the russian propaganda sham. this crowd strike kooky conspiracy theory. that someone list his server away to hide it.

that is russian intelligence propaganda. yes, it's a sham. it's worse than a sham. it's a russian propaganda coup, is what it is. thank god, putin says, they are not talking about russian interference anymore, they are talking about ukrainian interference. isn't it possible that two countries interfered? you heard what our own director of the fbi christopher wray said, there is no evidence of ukrainian interference in our election. there is no evidence. so yes, i think you can cite the fbi director to the prosecution that that is a sham. that is why, that is why we refer to it as such. but at the end of the day, what this is all about is the president is in the power of his office, abusing the power of his office to engage in soliciting

investigations and actually just the announcement of them. if the president thought there was so much merit there, why was a he just needed the announcement? as more, as counsel conceded before the break, rudy giuliani was not pursuing the policy of the united states. okay, if it was in the policy of the united states, what was it? was it the policy to pursue an investigation into the bidens? then what was it? it was a domestic political errand, is what it was. >> thank you, mr. manager. senator from oregon? >> mr. chief justice, on the behalf of... >> martha: i think this is a very interesting discussion being had hear about this email that chris hines wrote, saying that he wanted to make it perfectly clear that he had heard that hunter biden had joined the burisma board and wanted to make it clear that he

was not joining the board despite the fact that i believe the company was called sukhoi are that the partners had worked together on other investments. my company has zero part of this, and he thought it was not good judgment. michael goodwin, just a quick comment on what you saw in that last q&a? >> i think it's important to remember that the trump defense lawyers brought up a lot of that email the other day. >> martha: they did. >> the reason i believe is that they were trying to preview what happened to the bidens under their cross-examination. some of these guys are former cross prosecutors, pam bondi. this is a preview of the bidens, what we are going to do to the bidens. this is the mutually assured destruction. if you go down the road, we'll put the bidens on, the both of them and hunter biden cannot stand that kind of weathering cross-examination that he would get from the trump lawyers. >> martha: is pretty clear no matter what happens with this part of the procedure, that

discussion is going to go on throughout the entire 2020 election and so is the other side of it about the president and this phone call. let's step back and then will watch some more let's step back in and we'll watch some more. >> thank you, mr. chief justice. i want to thank the senators again for your hospitality and soliciting to both sides as we endeavor to answer your questions. thank you for that question. i think, first and foremost, there has been a troubling pattern of possible conflict of interest that we have seen from the beginning of this administration through this moment. but the allegations here related to the abuse of power charge is that in this specific instance, the president tried to cheat by

soliciting foreign interference in an american election. by trying to gin up phony investigations against a political opponent. now, what counsel for the president has said is that what the president was really interested in is corruption, that he is an anticorruption crusader. for you to believe the president's narrative, you have to conclude that he's an anticorruption crusader. perhaps his domestic record is part of what senators can reasonably consider, but let's look at the facts of the central charge here. the president had two because with president zelensky. on april 21st and on july 25th. in both instances, he did not

mention the word "corruption" once. "release the transcripts, the word corruption was not mentioned by donald trump ones. we also know that in may of last year, president trump's own department of defense indicated me that the new ukrainian government had met all necessary preconditions of the receipt of the military aid, including the implementation of anticorruption reforms. that is president trump's department of defense saying that there is no corruption concerns as it relates to the release of the aide. now, i think we can all acknowledge as the president's counsel indicated that there was a general corruption challenge with ukraine.

i think the exact quote was, "since the fall from the soviet union, ukraine has suffered from one of the worst environments for corruption in the world." certainly i believe it was the case, but here's the clear question: why did president trump wait until 2019 to pretend as if he wanted to do something about corruption? let's explore. did ukraine have a corruption problem in 2017? generally, the answer is yes. did president trump this like foreign aid in 2017? the answer is yes. what did president trump do about these alleged concerns in 2017? the answer is nothing. under the same exact conditions the president claims motivated him to seek a pony political investigation on the bidens and place a hold on the money, the president did nothing. did not seek an investigation into the biden bidens in 2017.

did not put a hold on the aide on 2017. but the trump administration oversaw $560 million in military and security aid to ukraine in 2017. in 2018, the same conditions existed. if president trump is truly an anticorruption crusader. but what happened in 2018? he didn't seek an investigation into the bidens, he did and put a hold on the eta. rather, the trump administration oversaw $620 million in military and security aid to ukraine. which brings us to this moment. why the sudden interest in burisma? in the biden bidens? and alleged corruption concerns? >> martha: michael goodwin here on the last minute. your thought on this last question, he never cared about

ukraine, he cared about running against joe biden most likely? >> i think that question has come up, that underlies everything, of course. i think it's been dealt with so many different ways from the republican side, from the president's team, i do not think it has any currency at this late hour. who is he talking to with these questions question like the senators clearly i think have all pretty much made up their mind. i think the air has come out of all of this in the closing hours. i'm not sure, almost feels like a starting question, not a conclusion question. >> martha: we've seen that point hammered quite a bit as you mentioned. the president, their sight has pointed out many times that aide flowed in a larger way and more substantial way in terms of lethal weaponry to ukraine, in terms of's concern of national security. thank you very much. encourage everybody to take a look at it tomorrow night on the screen on the right-hand side of your screen and chief justice john roberts in the final hours of the question and answer.

tomorrow, a big vote. i was even washington in washington, d.c., live with bret at 12:30. stick around, tucker carlson is next with the president live in iowa moments away. have a good night. >> tucker: good evening and welcome to tucker carlson tonight. the impeachment trial continues. the president, by the way, speaking tonight in a rally in the state of iowa. the caucus they are, the first contents of the democratic nominating process starts in just a few days. that'll be interesting. of course, we'll bring you highlights of that as we always do. the last week, we've been watching all this and the most cynical among us have dismissed the impeachment trial as a hollow political stunt. it's something like a network and intimate division must've cooked up the, they say. it's a bad reality show. but we are traditionalistses here so we resisted that here. what this is really about her